


Reflections at Evensong

by Sailing_the_Skies



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen, Out of the Abyss, Shenanigans, Swearing, the plot's a secret to me too
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-06-30 14:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19854901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sailing_the_Skies/pseuds/Sailing_the_Skies
Summary: A bunch of strangers band together to escape the drow and survive the many, many horrors of the Underdark. What could possibly go wrong?Session recaps of the D&D module Out of the Abyss.





	1. Dramatis Personae

## The Party:

 **Khalizz Ousstyl** \-- Female half-drow. Arcane Trickster Rogue.

 **Merlyn Derlyn** \-- Male drow. Abjurer Wizard.

 **Mirmul Starmantle** \-- Female firbolg. Circle of the Moon Druid.

 **Glaive Orodruinóna** \-- Female fire genasi. Oath of the Ancients Paladin.

 **Vetti Ochdimhel** \-- Female duergar. Monster Slayer Ranger.

**Various friends, enemies, and undecideds** \-- the DM.


	2. A Plan Idiotic and Bold

I'd fallen so far.

I never thought I would be in Velkynvelve, but here I was. Khalizz, formerly of House Ousstyl, now a slave for House Mizzrym. I’d spent the last week sleeping in rags, feeling icy water drip onto my head, working among captives from various raids. Surprisingly, it wasn't the work which was the worst. It was the indifference I faced, from guards, priests, and consorts who previously would've at least dipped their heads in acknowledgement, even to a half-human like me. Fuck Alaunirra for sending me here.

The work crew only has two other drow, both male. So far, Sarith has been quiet and hasn’t said much. The other one, Merlyn...when he first was shipped in here, I ignored him. His skin is lumpy and he looks wrong, as if he’s a wax figure that was melted under a fire. But underneath that disgusting exterior lies something else completely. Insanity, perhaps. Or brilliance.

Using the strange myconid spores that let us communicate silently with each other, Merlyn proposed a plan to escape from here. He knew a scary amount about what was going on about Velkenvelve. Enough of the work crew was convinced -- most notably a troublemaker fire genasi, a sneaky duergar, and a huge firbolg -- that I had no choice but to help. Mizzrym is known for their abject cruelty, and if a single slave attempts to escape, they execute the entire work crew. If I wanted to survive, I’d have to try to escape too.

So far, it seems like Merlyn's plan has worked. He got a priestess to help by _impersonating Lolth_ and promising rewards if she and another drow let us out of our cell. I have to say, he’s got guts. Lo and behold, the next day we found the doors to the cell slightly ajar with no guards in sight, and the duergar used a key she had pickpocketed to free us from our shackles.

On the way out, we found that one of the work crew, an orc, was dead. His blood had been used to draw a strange symbol on the ground. Merlyn rushed us out before I had much time to think of it.

At that moment, a distant alarm sounded. The group scattered, my half running across the bridges to the armory stalactite, the others going elsewhere. We overpowered the guards there with sheer numbers, causing the most undignified brawl I have ever seen. A quaggoth held them down while we beat at them with fists, magic, and weapons. Eventually, all three guards were bludgeoned to death.

After that, the group was able to loot the armory to our heart’s content. The firbolg smashed a chest open, which turned out to have many of our original possessions. Strange that they kept our things instead of selling them at Menzoberranzan like they usually do for prisoners, but in this case, the guards’ embezzling helped us. It made me feel so much more confident, to have my rapier in my hands again.

My hope was dashed when I got a good look outside on the bridges connecting the armory to other stalactites. It turned out, that alarm hadn’t been for us. It was for a demon raid on Velkynvelve.

 _Please,_ I prayed, _let me survive this._


	3. The Escape

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In between the last session and this one, I adjusted the trajectory of Khalizz's character arc. Her earlier reluctance to kill has been retconned away. Forget you saw anything.

Inside the armory, Merlyn issued more plans. Meanwhile, I found a svirfneblin named Jimjar to sneak with me to the shrine of Lolth, to see if there was anything of use there, like food or valuables. Jimjar and Ieft the armory. Some stalactites away from us, winged demons shrieked at guards with swords. Behind the front line, other guards aimed crossbows at the demons, filling the air with bolts. They were far too engaged in the battle to notice two prisoners making their way across the bridge to the shrine.

Once we made it to the stalactite with the shrine, I peeked inside. A statue of Lolth reared over four drow guards, her multiple arms outstretched over their crumpled forms. I vaguely remembered from lessons that certain demons could put others to sleep. Had that happened here? I walked inside the shrine and lightly kicked a guard, who let out a loud snore. I didn’t know how long these guards would be out for, and I couldn’t risk being surrounded. I knelt down and slit all four guards’ throats.

Now that the threat was dealt with, I searched the shrine, looking for valuables. Lolth’s eyes shone above me in the darkness, red and terrible and pleased. I drew closer. It turned out that the statue had represented her eyes with large rubies embedded into the stone, which created the lifelike effect. They’d definitely be worth a handsome sum if I could pry them off. I raised my rapier...

Jimjar nudged my shoulder, breaking me out of my reverie. “Ilvara and Shoor are in the room below. Looks like Shoor’s resuscitating Ilvara. We should go.” I blinked. I did _not_ want to fight a priestess of Lolth or her favored consort, wounded or not. Jimjar and I made a last sweep of the room, finding two heavy silver candlesticks, and left.

Back in the armory, the entire work crew had gathered together. It seemed like we were ready as we ever would be to leave. Under Merlyn’s direction, the group ran to a bridge overlooking a river and jumped into the water below.

The water soaked all the way through my clothing, and it felt like ice. I broke to the surface shivering, and from the looks of it, I wasn’t the only one. We had to get out of this pool quickly.

It was at that moment that we spotted the ooze.

The amorphous, grey blob roped a sludgy arm at one of other escaped slaves, the duergar. She yelled and slashed the arm off. I thrust my rapier at the ooze. The part of my sword that was buried in the ooze began to make sizzling noises. I pulled it out and watched in horror as the metal seemed to soften.

Suddenly, an arrow whizzed past my side and into the ooze. This looked much more effective than anything I could do, so I backed off to enable a clearer shot. I watched as more members of the group hurled magic at it. Before long, the ooze had been reduced to slowly dissolving chunks.

We made it out of the pool and deliberated. The cave that Velkenvelve was in had three exits out, all heading in different directions. Based on the combined knowledge of the group, we were able to determine where each route led: one to Menzoberranzan, the capital city of the drow; one to Blingdenstone, inside the country of the svirfneblin; and one to Sloobludop, in the heart of kuo’toa territory. The group voted for Sloobludop.

The kuo’toa of the group, Shuushar, guided us where he could, pointing out various hazards along the way. Meanwhile, the firbolg and the duergar foraged for food. I made a point of learning their names, which were Mirmul and Vetti, respectively.

Several days passed uneventfully like this. At points the path would narrow to the point that we had to squeeze sideways to fit through the cracks. At others, the path expanded into a cavern with a ceiling that soared far over our heads. At one point, we even passed a ruin, which had strange magic imprints of the past. Still, it was almost peaceful, if I could forget about the guards who were probably pursuing us. I knew it was too good to last...


	4. Of Goblins and Mindflayers

We decided that we could travel faster if we spent less time foraging. Mirmul and Vetti had found enough food that we had a surplus that we could eat, and the more distance we put between ourselves and the guards, the better. Besides, what could go wrong?

We received our answer on the second day when we walked into an ambush.

I wasn’t sure what had happened -- one moment, the fire genasi at the front of the line, Glaive, was yelling about breaking a tripwire. The next, a mass of arrows all slammed into her at the same time, and she fell to the ground.

It was the perfect setup for our enemies. We were caught in a narrow passage that opened into a wider one, and the ground was slippery enough to make maneuvering difficult. If we tried to squeeze back through the way we’d came, the shuffling and confusion would let them pick us off at their leisure. We had to act decisively.

I leapt to the front of the line and saw hordes of goblins, clustered together on top of mushrooms to avoid the floor. I shot a crossbow bolt at the closest one. The others fanned out into the cavern, engaging the other goblin archers. Vetti helped me finish off the rest of the goblins in my cluster. Mirmul cast a spell to dry the ground, and then shifted into a giant white wolf. The goblins, armed only with bows, fell quickly before us.

In the back of the chamber, two voices chanted in unison.

Fire burst out of the tunnel. I yelped and fell to the ground, rolling to put out the flames on my clothing. I’d been spared the worst of the fireball, but the ones inside the tunnel weren’t so lucky. When I glanced at them, I saw multiple people down, possibly dead.

That fireball must have come from a mage. I scanned the room, and found a two-headed goblin with a staff in the back of the cavern, standing on top of a mushroom. He couldn’t be allowed to do that again.

Mirmul must have had the same idea, because when I ran to the back of the cavern to kill the mage, she was already there, prowling just under the mage’s mushroom. The right head smiled smugly at her, while the left head jeered.

Suddenly, Mirmul reared up to her hind legs and yanked his staff away with her jaws. Once it left his grasp, she gave it a victorious shake, splintering the wood a little under the force of her grip. 

I took advantage of the distraction to scramble onto the mushroom and stab the mage in the side. The right head turned to look at me. It said something, and suddenly the mage dissolved into droplets of vapor.

Was he dead? Just under an illusion? I swished my rapier in the spot that he’d been, but I didn’t feel anything. Mirmul nudged my hand with her nose and pointed her head. Then she indicated her back. Hopefully that meant what I thought she meant; combat was no time to second-guess things.

I got on Mirmul’s back and she took off. I clung to her fur for dear life as she ran through the fight, passing dead goblins and bloodied group members. Suddenly, I caught sight of the mage, his two heads gathered together in discussion. Mirmul must have found where he’d moved to. Just as her jaws were almost about to close on him, he vanished again.

Mirmul sniffed for a few second and ran after him. It turned out that the mage had reappeared in the back of the cave, panting and stooped a little. We cornered him against the wall. She slashed at him with her giant claws, but there was a shimmering flair and her claws scrabbled off uselessly. I thrust at him with my rapier. It collided against something solid, causing what looked like flashing ripples in the air. Some sort of magical shield?

At that point, Merlyn strolled into the fight, hardly looking any worse despite being in the tunnel at the time of the fireball. To be honest, I wouldn’t have noticed much difference from his normal appearance if he actually had been burned at all. He lifted his hand and three bolts of fire flew towards the mage. Two of them splashed harmlessly against the barrier, causing wobbles in the air, and the third sailed through. The right head babbled something to the left.

“Surrender,” Merlyn said.

Both heads shook simultaneously. The left one opened its mouth to speak, but before it could say anything, I attacked the mage. This time, there was nothing in the way, nothing to stop me from driving my rapier deep into the left head. I pulled it out, and the whole body slumped to the floor.

The mage was dead. That had been a lucky guess, that Merlyn had taken down the goblin’s shield and he hadn’t had time to reinforce it. I murmured a short prayer of thanks.

When I turned to survey the whole cavern, I saw that the rest of the battle was over too. The others picked through goblin corpses, rifling through pockets and inspecting personal effects. In the small tunnel, Glaive was healing the others. Warm light flared in her palms as she passed over each patient.

There was one who she didn’t heal. Sarith, whose blackened body lay lifelessly on the ground, like a rag doll thrown away by its owner. I’d known that escaping would lead to some of us dying, and it was a miracle we weren’t all dead yet. Still, knowing that one of us had fallen so quickly, to a single spell… I turned away from the sight.

Back at the goblin mage’s body, things had gone strange. Merlyn had sawed the top of one head off, and was dining on the mage’s brain with a fork and a knife. Piece by piece, he lifted slices of red matter into his mouth as if he was eating a fine piece of steak. Meanwhile, Mirmul, still in her wolf form, gnawed on the mage’s leg. She'd ripped off enough meat that his femur was clearly visible. Vetti had wandered over and was now painting the ground with his blood. Her hand was smeared red with blood.

What were they _doing?_ I stepped forward to comment, but looked at Mirmul’s sharp teeth and thought better of it.

We were leaving the cavern far behind us when Merlyn asked us to pause and rest. "It is time for me to tell you," he said, in his slow, deep voice. "I am a mindflayer."

_What?_

He went on to describe his life, how he had long been a traveler, and through his experiences had learned respect for other races and cultures. While he’d been on one such trip, his colony had succumbed to some sort of madness, leaving him no choice but to flee from his kind. In his haste, he had been caught in an area of faerzress, magical radiation that had slowly twisted his mind and body, which had led to the ugly wreck standing in front of us now. When drow slavers stumbled upon him, he was too weak to resist.

He had to eat a brain every four weeks to survive -- the more intelligent, the better.

“Will you eat us?” someone asked. 

The entire group held its breath. I placed my hand on my rapier.

“Yes,” Merlyn said. “If I have to.”

That, I believed. The only part of his story that I _could_ wholeheartedly believe. But I wasn't about to challenge the mindflayer mage who had been the mastermind behind our escape so far. On the run, isolated from society, struggling for survival, I didn’t want to know what he could do to us if we tried to oust him. If he did turn out to be a threat, we’d have one chance to pull off a coordinated attack. One.

This was not the time to waste it.

“My real name is Szkwiidswyrldheq,” said the mindflayer. “But please, call me Merlyn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Throwing level 7 spellcasters at a party of level 3 players is mean.
> 
> Killing level 7 spellcasters as a party of level 3 players is fun.
> 
> It's a delicate balance, and I'm happy to leave the details of that for my DM to handle.


	5. Dramatis Personae Updated: Merlyn

## The Party:

 **Khalizz Ousstyl** \-- Female half-drow. Arcane Trickster Rogue.

 **Merlyn Derlyn** \-- Mindflayer in the form of a male drow. Left his colony to travel the world, gaining a healthy respect for other cultures along the way. When he returned, he discovered that it had been overrun by madness and he had no choice but to flee. Presents himself as a leper with a tragic backstory sure to gain sympathy (to those who care to listen, at least). Terrible at maintaining his cover. Abjurer Wizard.

 **Mirmul Starmantle** \-- Female firbolg. Circle of the Moon Druid.

 **Glaive Orodruinóna** \-- Female fire genasi. Oath of the Ancients Paladin.

 **Vetti Ochdimhel** \-- Female duergar. Monster Slayer Ranger.

**Things that want to kill us** \-- the DM.


	6. Nightmares

That night, I had ominous dreams.

I woke up on a stone platform with Merlyn, Vetti, and Glaive. We were strewn about on the ground, like dolls tossed by a careless child. Eight spindly pillars surrounded us, and beyond them, the stone dropped off to nothingness. Lights glittered in the darkness beyond, but they weren’t stars. I felt for my rapier, and breathed a sigh of relief when I found it sheathed at my hip.

A rhythmic thumping filled the air. I looked left and right, but couldn’t see a source of it, except...

I looked up.

The pillars weren’t pillars at all. They were giant legs, connecting to two oval segments. A spider. Somewhere in that abdomen was the source of that awful pulsing. The head was too far away to make out, but I knew what it would look like. A female drow face of poised beauty ready to strike, a smile playing about her lips, eyes that pierced the soul.

Lolth.

I drew my rapier. “Kill me if you like,” I shouted. “I don’t regret anything!”

Dark clusters of spiders rappelled down from Lolth’s body. Some of them were large, as tall as a drow, and others were swarms of smaller spiders, so densely packed that they looked like a crawling mass of black.

They attacked everybody, but seemed to save their most vicious attacks for me. At one point, a spider my size tore into my side with its mandibles, injecting freezing poison into my blood. Still, we managed to beat them off and kill them. 

Vetti took advantage of the chaos to strike at Lolth’s legs with her twin swords. Each time she hacked through a leg, the platform shuddered and it fell away. Halfway through, we realized what she was doing halfway and went to help.

As the last leg careened off the edge of the platform, Lolth’s presence faded.

I let out a shuddering breath. For whatever reason, the goddess had not seen fit to kill me yet -- not this day, at this time.

I woke up.

Heavy fog obscured my vision. I saw the others of my group, Merlyn and Vetti and Glaive. Colorful lights floated in the distance, too far to determine the source.

I stepped toward the lights. The ground crunched and shifted under my feet, covered with a carpet of bones so thick that I couldn’t see to the bottom. Had something happened while Lolth held me in her dream? I slowly reached for my rapier.

Suddenly, a skeletal snake burst out of the ground. It stared at me, with burning eyes of pale blue light. Under the weight of its horrible gaze, my arms felt too leaden to move. I stumbled backwards, unable to do anything other than crunch the skeletons under my feet, even as it snapped at Glaive, even as it bit at Merlyn. All I could do was stumble backwards.

A ball of light popped in front of me, and zapped me. I jumped backwards, but that caused me to slip into a pile of bones. The last thing I felt was my head cracking against a sharp fragment of bone.

When I came to, I saw Glaive in front of me. Warm magic flowed from her hand, not enough for me to feel fine, but enough to chase away some of the chill of death. Before I could say thanks, she left, going back into the fray.

My head still hurt a little. I didn’t feel confident enough to wade into melee, so I climbed a larger skeleton and observed the fight.

Things were bad. Whole droves of skulls...things had surrounded the rest of the group. They were in all shapes and sizes, but every one of them had tentacles made of bone instead of lower jaws. Waves after waves of them threw themselves upon Merlyn, Vetti, and Glaive. Blades flashed, polearms swung, magic sparked, and still they kept on coming, mountains of bone and burning blue eyes. To make things worse, the balls of light and the bone naga flitted through the battlefield, randomly striking at them before disappearing again.

I trained my crossbow on the lights and naga. Whenever they appeared to harry someone with attacks, I took the opportunity to fire a shot.

The bone naga emerged near Glaive. It struck at her, but at that moment, Glaive lit on fire, weapon and all. She sliced her polearm through its spine, once, twice, thrice, and it fell to the ground in pieces. Then, she slammed the butt of her weapon against the skull. It shattered.

All at once, the blue lights in each of the skulls flickered, and winked out.

Finally, it was over.

I woke up.

That...that had been a disturbing series of nightmares. What was Lolth trying to do? I sat up and lifted my arms, if only to prove that I had full control over them again. Maybe a walk would help clear my head. I looked around.

The area around me was a stone platform, and my only companions were Merlyn, Vetti, and Glaive.

I whipped out my rapier.

An ooze slowly coalesced itself out of the ground. Other masses of material began to rise, too, but these seemed more cubical. On the other side of the platform, mushrooms popped out of the ground. The ooze charged into the largest fungus. It engulfed most of it, but not all, and the top of the ooze began to sprout foul-smelling mushrooms. They both ate at each other in this way, consuming and reconsuming each other.

We all looked at each other. Even if these things weren’t hostile yet, we knew how the past dreams had gone. Once one of these things won, it would come for us.

We charged as one. We were almost on the ooze and fungus when --

I woke up.

I drew my rapier and slashed wildly --

But it was only Mirmul, calling my name. She said, with a worried expression on her face, “The twin svirfneblin, Topsy and Turvey, are gone.”

I nodded slowly. In the bedrolls next to me, Merlyn, Vetti, and Glaive had all woken up. We were out of it now. Whatever had happened to the svirfneblin, it had to be better than the dreams.


End file.
